As a general principle, we will not transfer your personal data to third parties without your permission.There are three exceptions to this:

If you do not pay your bills, we may choose to engage a third party to recover any money you owe us. We’ve never done this, but we want to keep this option open to us.

It is possible, though unlikely, that we might be forced to disclose your information in response to a court order or other binding mandate.

As solicitors, we have professional duties, including to co-operate with the ICO, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, as well as to report suspicious transactions or money laundering. We will always try to minimise any sharing of your personal data.

We use practice management software called ActionStep which stores all of our data in Europe (using AWS) and uses best practice security systems to keep our (and your) data safe.

Giving you legal advice

We use the information we hold about you and your business to give you the best legal advice we can.

We also use your information to bill you and keep track of payments that you make.

(Basis: Art. 6(b): this is necessary to deliver the service to you).

ID checks

We will have done an ID check on you before you become a client. If you do not instruct us for a while, we may need to do another ID check. We will do what we can to make this as painless as possible. If you would prefer not to provide these information, we will not be able to act for you.We retain identity verification information for as long as you are our client, and then five years.

(Basis: Art. 6(c): we have to do this processing to comply with legal and regulatory obligations).

We may transfer and process personal data in any country where we engage service providers, including outside the EEA.

Whilst these counties will have data protection rules that differ from the EEA, we will take measures to ensure that any such transfers comply with applicable data protection laws and that your personal data remains protected to the standards described in this privacy policy.

Giving you legal advice

If you get in touch looking for legal advice, we will do some research to understand more about you and what you do. Usually, this means reading up on your products or services, how you position yourself in the market, what you display on your public facing websites and social media presence, and so on. This helps us work out how best we can help you, and if we’re really the right people for the job.(Basis: Art. 6(b): this is necessary to deliver the service to you.)

ID checks

The law requires that, in some situations, we must know who you are before we can give you legal advice. Stephenson Law’s approach to this is to check the identity of all clients. We will do what we can to make this as painless as possible. If you would prefer not to provide these information, we will not be able to act for you.Any personal data received from you for this purpose will be processed only for the purposes of preventing money laundering, unless we have your consent to process it for another purpose.

We retain identity verification information for as long as you are our client and then five years, or else five years from the point you decide you do not want to become a client.

(Basis: Art. 6(c): we have to do this processing to comply with legal and regulatory obligations.)

Dealing with enquiries

If you give us a ring or make contact by email, we will follow up on your enquiry and see if there is a way in which we can help you. We keep a record of enquiries received, to help us plan our business strategy and check that we are offering what potential clients want.(Basis: Art. 6(b): we need to use your details to follow up with you. Art. 6(f): business planning is a legitimate thing for us to do, and keeps us relevant and hopefully more in tune with your needs.)

Site Visitors

We generate log files from various servers: this will include an IP address assigned to you or, more likely, to someone who provides you with Internet access.

We use Google Analytics which processes users’ IP addresses in an anonymised format, so that we can never identify users’ identities from it. Google Analytics has servers based outside the EEA. To learn more, please see the sections on Cookies below.

References to the basis of processing (e.g. “(Basis: Art. 6(f).)”) are a reference to the article of the General Data Protection Regulation under which we undertake the processing in question.

Technical data

We use the logs from our servers to assist in our firm’s security, as well as to determine visitor behaviour and help us plan our strategy (e.g. such as working out which pages on the site are most popular, or whether particular events have caused an increase in traffic).

We use Google Analytics to track and report web traffic to enable us to improve and optimise our website.

(Basis: Art. 6(c): we have legal and regulatory obligations to protect our clients and their information. Art. 6(f): strategy planning is a legitimate thing for a business to do.)

Cookies

Through Google Analytics, our website uses cookies. Cookies are pieces of code that allow small amounts of information to be passed from your internet browser to our web server. We use third party cookies, serving several purposes. All data passed by cookies is anonymous and will never contain your name, address, telephone number or payment details.

They enable us to:

estimate our audience size and usage pattern;

store information about your preferences, which allow us to customise our site according to your individual interests;

speed up your searches; and/or

recognise you when you return to our site.

If you do not want to accept cookies, you can change your browser settings so that cookies are not accepted. If you do this, please be aware that you may lose some of the functionality of our website. For further information about cookies and how to disable them please go to: www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

Newsletter

References to the basis of processing (e.g. “(Basis: Art. 6(f).)”) are a reference to the article of the General Data Protection Regulation under which we undertake the processing in question.

We will send you regular communications containing our latest blogs, tip tips and other updates for as long as you remain opted-in to receive them.

(Basis: Art. 6(a): we will obtain consent from you.)

Opting out

You can ask us to stop sending you our newsletter at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing messages sent to you. Alternatively, you can email us at info@stephensonlaw.co.uk. Please be aware that any request to opt-out may take up to 10 days to process.